The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Come on, God wants to put the word in you. Not what that other stuff and what the world's putting in you and you're allowing the world to put in you and you're inviting the world to put in you and you're calling up and having it put in you. God's wanting to put seed into you and the wind, the spirit, meaning the very breath of God. God speaks his breath, his word. It comes to transform you into a pure garden for him.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word with Pastor Jack Morris. A beautiful garden doesn't happen by accident. It must be cultivated, nourished, and protected. The Scripture teaches that much the same is true of our spiritual lives. Today, Pastor Jack Morris begins our new series, Eyes of Faith, with a message about the garden God desires to grow within each of us. A life producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and the character of Jesus Christ. Here's Pastor Morris with The Garden of My Life.

Pastor Jack Morris: You have a sermon outline and I hope it'll be helpful as you follow along today. The Garden of My Life. We're all familiar with gardens, aren't we? We know what a garden is. We've seen gardens. Some of us even have gardens. Garden is a special place, a designated place, set apart, set aside to do something very special. It's a special region, a fertilized area, to bring forth vegetables, fruit, flowers. There's flower gardens, vegetable gardens, fruit gardens.

Our lives are to be a garden for the Lord Jesus Christ. He compares our life, he likens our lives to that of gardens. He says that we are to bring forth a fruit or a character that is like Jesus himself. I'm going to turn to Galatians chapter 5 if you'd like to turn over there with me or just listen to these words. The garden of our heart is to produce joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

That's what the Lord is trying to grow in you and grow in me. This garden of the Lord, this garden of my life. It says in Ephesians chapter 1, have you ever wondered why you're here, why God birthed you, why you were ever born? Here's the only answer I can come up with. It says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ."

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to his pleasure and will." Okay, here it is. Here's why you're here. It's the only reason I can think of, the only reason the Bible gives. Verse 6, "To the praise of his glorious grace." That's why we're here. We are here, your life is here.

Lady, sir, you are here to praise the Lord, to bring glory to Jesus Christ, to be a reflection of Jesus Christ. When God looks at you, he wants to see love, joy, peace, temperance, long-suffering, gentleness, just like Jesus. He wants to see Jesus coming out of your heart, to the praise of his glory. He's just reproducing Jesus. All of you people are Jesus. Everybody here is supposed to be another reflection or another Jesus, another light in this world. Jesus is in you. His life is in you. His character is in you. Jesus is to come forth from our lives.

Point A in your outline, you may want to write down the words. There are two words: human history began with a garden. Whenever God was going to do something beautiful and something noble, he'd make a garden and he'd start it in a garden. God loves nature. He really does. And he loves gardens. He created man and soon after he created the world, he created this beautiful garden. Then he created man and he put man in a garden. Where did God visit the man that he created? He visited him in the garden.

It was a beautiful garden, pure and holy, indescribable. Words cannot describe its pristine beauty. There God visited man, communed with man in a garden. But something terrible happened in that beautiful garden. God starts everything out so beautiful. If anything is messed up anywhere along the line, you can be sure we're going to do it. And man did. He did a terrible thing. He sinned and he did that which displeased God. That beautiful garden was all over when man was finished with it.

But before man was put out of the garden, God did something. He said, "I'm going to turn it around. I made it beautiful, you made it ugly. I'm going to turn it around and make it beautiful again." That's our lives. We do things, we sin, we make things ugly, we transgress, and we bring a lot of hardship and heartache into our lives and a lot of displeasure to the Lord. But given back to the Lord, he'll turn it around again and bring something beautiful out of it.

He takes the lamb and he slays the lamb. Man put a terrible stain on what God did. God turns the thing around with another stain, the stain of the blood to cover the stain of man. It's all done in this garden. It all happened in the garden: the beginning of humanity happened in a garden, fellowship with God, sin and the fall of humanity, redemption, all in a garden. God loves gardens and he does his greatest and noblest things in a garden.

Look at point B in your outline. Write down the word salvation. Salvation begins in a garden. It says in John chapter 18, after Jesus instituted the first Lord's Supper, he ate it with his disciples. They sang a hymn, they went out, crossed over the Brook Kidron, and went into a garden. It was the Garden of Gethsemane. There he is going to do another great thing. He's going to bring about our salvation in its fullness and completion. He gave us a hint in the Garden of Eden, but now he's going to complete the work in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There in that garden, he drinks our cup. I want you to notice something. When he instituted the Lord's Supper in the upper room, he did not drink the cup. He gave the cup to his disciples. He didn't participate. You're going to see Pastor Wilson and me participate here today. But when Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, he didn't participate. He gave it to them. There was another cup waiting for him. It was in the garden. He gave the disciples his cup of purity. He said, "Drink my blood, drink my life, become my character in the world."

He said, "I'm going to go on the garden and I'm going to drink your cup. You drink my cup, I'm going to go into the garden and drink your cup." That's what he did. The Scripture says he who had no sin was made sin for us. What a marvelous exchange it was when Jesus went into the garden and drank our cup. Three times the Father pressed the cup to his holy lips. Two times he recoiled, he backed away. He saw in that cup all the sins of the world. Every sin, every virus, every disease, every bit of corruption.

His lips had been holy, and now his lips are going to be stained with our stain of sin. He must drink it in order to cleanse us. He takes our cup, our sin into his own body. I would think a lot of times over today to take somebody else's AIDS. I don't want to get AIDS. Nobody wants to get AIDS. But wouldn't that be a terrible thing to say, "Wait a minute, I'll take your AIDS. I'll let that terrible disease work in my bloodstream for you. I know what it means, I know there's no cure. But I'll take your AIDS, I'll take your viruses, I'll take your diseases, I'll take your adultery, I'll take your lying, I'll take your cheating, I'll take all the corruption and sin and all the deception of your evil thoughts. I'll take it in. I'll give you my cup of purity, but I'll take your cup of shame and all the sin."

There are terrible things that are going on in the world today. We live in a dying, decaying world. There is nothing in the way of permanent peace and happiness in this world. We go from one terrible thing to another terrible thing. But we have Jesus and we have the hope that there is cleansing in him and new life in him and happiness in him. He's trying to do something for us today, trying to do something with us. He's trying to grow a garden out of your heart, a garden that grew out of his own heart.

The Scripture says when he went into that garden and he put that filth to his lips, Luke 22:44 says, "And being in anguish." He knew what it was. He knew what sin was. This thing that you and I play with, think harmless, even enjoy, even tell jokes about it. He knew that it was a destructible, damnable thing that only he could deal with. He takes all of that sin. Oh, I keep asking myself, what is this thing that he took, this sin that men and women enjoy?

We call it fun. We're going out for a night of fun. We're going to cheat a little bit, make a little bit more money so we can have more fun and commit more sin. We do all of those things and we say we enjoy it, and we must to some degree because we keep going back and doing it. What I learned about sin is that it is an almost infinite power because people keep going back and keep going back. They break the habit only to go back and do it again.

The liar lies again. The fornicator fornicates again. The thief steals again. The evil thinker thinks evil again. Sin is there and people seem to enjoy it. It caused Jesus to sweat blood. His blood became clotted and started falling out of his pores. That which you and I enjoy caused him to sweat blood. I'm just now getting into computers after all these years. I thank God I've never clicked on one time where it says click for this particular picture or for this particular statement.

All I'm doing is trying to get my email. Boy, they're trying to get to me and they're trying to get to you. Friends, I know that some of this has gotten to some of you men. I know it. I know it in my heart. It's heavy today for you. I know you can't hardly turn it off. I know some of you are up in the wee hours of the morning. You think your wives are in bed and asleep and you turn that thing on. I know some of you have called the 900 number. I know that.

I know a lot more than I tell. It's a terrible thing. We say the name of Jesus and we sing the songs of Jesus and then we smile at the shady and the corrupt and the sinful. And we go back and do it again and we go back and do it again. What is this thing that has such a hold on mankind? Sin. A terrible thing. An awful thing. It wrung from the body of Jesus his very blood.

I'm stirred up a little bit today. I came into church and somebody told me, they whispered to me, they said, "My husband has cancer." The husband is here today. Somebody else this past week called, "My spouse has cancer." That spouse is right here hearing me preach this morning. This is a terrible, corrupt, dying world. Who's going to change it? Who's going to make wrong right and ugly beautiful? You can't.

Friend, death is going to get you and me. It's going to get us. But Jesus says, "Drink my cup and live forever. I'll drink your death and I'll drink your hell and I'll drink all your sins." You name the sin. "I'll take your virus and I'll let it go into my body. But here's my cup. Let my cup of purity and love and everlasting life go into you." It's a hard thing to see my friends suffer. I'm getting very personal now. The men of the church, we go on retreats together. We go to men's fellowship together. We laugh, we joke, all of them clean. We don't click on that other stuff.

Then I see them sick. And some of my sisters in Christ sick and going through pain and suffering in the family and I just feel so helpless. I cry and I pray for them. Then I learn that some of the other men are dialing the 900 number, running up terrible phone bills and clicking on. Don't tell me it isn't so. I know it's so. God knows it's so. You know it's so. If you keep on, you'll be lost forever.

Come to the cup of the Lord Jesus Christ. Drink and be cleansed of all of the filth that has come in and live forever. You don't have much longer. You really don't. If you're ever going to clean up, do it now. The Savior calls to us to come to him and to clean up our lives. Human history began in a garden, salvation began in a garden. God wants to turn your life back into a garden paradise again. You've just allowed the world to pump sin in. You've dialed it up over and over again.

You've made a habit of it. You've enjoyed it. How can you enjoy that which killed your Savior and made him sweat as it were great drops of blood? But some of you are going to leave here and click on again tonight. Others are going to dial 900 again tonight. You hear this message, you'll come to this table and you will drink damnation to your own soul. The Scripture says let a man examine himself. Sir, you better confess. You better own up. Who do you think you're fooling?

This is serious business. God wants to beautify and cleanse and purify and make you a man again, a Christian man, a Christian husband. Someone said, "I'm having problems in my marriage." Hey, give up the filth and God will answer your prayers and turn things around and make things better for you again. Really he will. He wants to. He wants to make your life and your home a Garden of Eden again. He wants to bring paradise back, and you keep shoveling the filth back in. Jesus wants to help you.

Number C, look at number C. Put down the word resurrection. Resurrection began in a garden. John 19:41 says, "At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden." Did you hear that? Did you hear what I just read? At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. There he is, back in the garden again. He died on Calvary's cross. They took his body down from the cross. They put his body in a tomb in a garden.

My sin, your sin, put him there. And believe me, friends, there's no such thing as a big sin or a little sin. No, it's just sin. It's all the same. It's all against God. It transgressed God. But he took all of that sin into his own body from the cup he drank in Gethsemane. He goes to the cross, he dies for that sin. They take his lifeless body down from the cross and they put his body into that tomb. In his body was your sins and my sins, buried with him in the tomb.

The third day, he came out of the tomb with a new body, a heavenly celestial body, resurrected body, leaving behind in the darkness your sins and my sins. Now isn't that wonderful? Can you say praise the Lord? Leaving our sins in the darkness in that terrible hole back there. Don't go back there and dig it out again and go back there and search for that sin and bring it out. You're resurrecting your own hell when you do that. You say, "Oh, nobody knows when I pick up that phone and dial that number. Nobody knows."

God knows, you know, and it will face you in eternity. When you are exposed, you will be exposed before all. Yes, God knows, you know, and I know a little bit more than I'm letting you know today too, and I've known it for a long time. God have mercy on us today. God have mercy on us is my prayer. Adam lost it all in a garden. He sinned and he went against God and he lost it all. But Jesus goes back into the garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and he got it all back. Everything that Adam lost, he got it all back. He redeemed. That's what redeem means, to buy back. He got it all back.

Point D in your outline, write down the word our. Our life is a garden. Jesus loves gardens. Jesus is always going to a garden. When your life and my life become a garden through confession and repentance and getting all the sin out and he turns your heart back into paradise, he'll come back into your garden and your prayers will be heard and your family will be spared and your life will be healed and redeemed. Jesus goes into gardens.

We have made a trash heap, a dump. And then we wonder, where is Jesus when I pray? Why doesn't Jesus help me with my problems with my wife or with my husband? He doesn't visit garbage heaps. But he will clean it up and turn it into a paradise if you'll give your heart to him and he'll turn your life into a garden. Jesus talked about a sower that went out to sow and sowed the seed, and some of the seed fell on good soil. I believe today the seed, these are the words of Jesus and they're going out and it's falling on good soil.

Some of you are going to respond in a very positive, faith-like way and believe on Jesus and be blessed and be healed. He's going to make a garden out of your life. They're just weeds and thorns and thistles and worries. Some of you are worried and stressed. Oh, you're nearly stressed to death. You really are. That's what life does to you. That's what problems does to you. But Jesus knows how to take the stress out of life, take the sin out of life, and turn your life into a beautiful garden for him.

Now he wants to grow out of your heart love, joy, peace. Oh, you need some peace today and I do too. We all do. Long-suffering, gentleness, patience. This is what Jesus is wanting to do. In Mark chapter 11, the Scripture says Jesus saw a fig tree and it had all the leaves out. It was just laden with leaves. He was hungry. He goes by the fig tree and he works in and he reaches in around it and he moves and he's looking and he's looking. Hey, you're professing. Why aren't you producing?

There was nothing but a just a showy tree. Good for nothing. It just professed. It didn't do anything for anybody and it certainly didn't do anything for Jesus. Jesus says, "You're just taking up a piece of space on a pew. You don't produce anything but words. You don't produce character, don't produce love." Jesus cursed the tree and the tree withered and the tree died. When the Lord comes to my life, when a crisis comes, and crises will come to all of us, when that happens, I want to say, "Lord, I want you to look in my garden, in my heart. You didn't labor in vain in my heart. You didn't sow the seed in vain in my heart. I'm going to produce a crop for you. Lord, I'm going to produce steadfastness. I'm going to produce love."

When Jesus says, "Boy, he's going through a problem. He has a trial. Things are contrary. But look how patient. Look how steadfast. Look at the love. Look at the joy." God's going to say, "That's my boy." It's Jesus all over again. Not anything that I've produced, but what the seed of the word has produced. Now I want you to turn here. Do you have Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 12? Let me get over here real quick. Listen to it. "You are a gardenlocked up, my sister, my bride. You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain."

What's he talking about? You listening to me? "You are a garden locked up." It means your life belongs to me. You're a garden locked up. You're my very own possession. You're not a public garden for anything corrupt and anything in the world to walk into and to take over and to spoil or to enjoy. You are a garden. You belong to me. I have redeemed you. You are mine. You belong to me. You're a garden locked up.

Now look at verse 16, Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 16. "Awake north wind, and come south wind. Blow on my garden and its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits." Oh lover of my soul, Jesus, come and look at the garden of my heart. Look at my life. Come into the garden. Find pleasure. Don't come into my garden like you went into Adam's garden and say, "Hey Jack Morris, where art thou? Where are you living? How are you living? What are you doing with my life that I put into you? Where are you, son? Where have you gone?"

No, it says, "Awake north wind." And the word wind in both Hebrew and Greek is interpreted spirit. Awake spirit, come blow on my garden. That means blow the seed. Come on, God wants to put the word in you. Not what that other stuff and what the world's putting in you and you're allowing the world to put in you and you're inviting the world to put in you and you're calling up and having it put in you. God's wanting to put seed into you and the wind, the spirit, meaning the very breath of God.

God speaks his breath, his word. It comes to transform you into a pure garden for him that he might take joy and pleasure in your life, in my life. Awake north wind, come south wind. Blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad. Not a profession, a profession of faith without a possession of faith is a stench in the nostrils of God. It doesn't do anything for God. It doesn't help your neighbor, your world, your family. It doesn't do anything for you.

When your garden has received the very breath of God, the very breath of his word, there is a fragrance coming out of your life, a beauty coming out of your life. That's what God is trying to do, bring beauty out of anything that has been made ugly. In chapter 5 verse 1, the lover says, "I have come into my garden." God's coming in, friend. He's going to inspect the fig tree of your life. You're saying, "I have fruits." By your profession, you have the leaves. You're saying, "I have it." Jesus said, "If you have it, let's see it. Let's produce it. I'm coming."

He says, "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey. I have drunk my wine and my milk." That's what God wants: a beautiful life, a life that is giving off a fragrance, a life that is giving off nourishment and substance. Listen, your family needs that kind of life. Your neighborhood, your church. And sir, lady, you need that kind of life. That's the kind of beauty that the Lord brings.

He paid a terrible price to make it happen. But the price has been paid and now you and I have but to come and to partake. Come confessing. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit to search my own heart. I'm going to ask him to show me my sin that I might confess it out and repent of it and turn away from it. That very sin that keeps choking his love, his joy, his peace. I'm going to ask him to take it away out of my life and to turn my life back into paradise, into a Garden of Eden.

I'm going to come to this table after I have confessed and I'm going to take and I'm going to say I have spewed out in confession the filth and I'm going to take in the purity through the cup, the broken body and blood of Jesus. Will you come to the table today? Will you come confessing? Will you come repenting? Will you come ready to receive and be cleansed?

Guest (Male): God wants to take whatever has become broken, overgrown, or damaged in our lives and make it beautiful again. As Pastor Morris just reminded us, through Christ, our hearts can become gardens where the character of Jesus grows and his love is seen by others. For more biblical encouragement, devotionals, and opportunities to share your prayer requests with us, visit thehealingword.com. And if this ministry is a blessing to you, your prayers and financial support help us continue sharing God's word with people around the world. Join us next time for an encouraging message of faith and assurance. Everything is going to be all right.